


To Wound An Angel

by spotofpurple



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-30 04:49:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spotofpurple/pseuds/spotofpurple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a professional always makes the difference. Or that is what Louis says to himself, getting ready to steal the most prized possession out of Harry Styles’ painting collection. The fact that he may have fallen in love with the target who he was pretending to date in order to rob him, well… even the best of us make mistakes, right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Wound An Angel

There’s a single yellow tulip on the pillow beside him when Louis wakes up. The smell of Harry’s cologne is seeping through his sleepiness and he turns toward the empty side of the bed, stretching out and touching nothing. The face he sees in the mirror hanging on the wall across the bed is a picture of grumpiness and regret and he doesn’t like it. Harry is everywhere, recognizable smells and predictable linen on the bed and Louis is now a part of his life, a boyfriend.

His phone beeps on the nightstand and when he stretches out to reach for it, the sheet covering him slips down so he catches the sight of himself in the mirror again, lying naked in a bed of another man, in someone else’s house, waking up like he belongs there. Like Harry trusts him, with his nights and his body, his house and his belongings and, the most ridiculous, his heart.

“Morning love, work meeting. Breakfast is in the microwave. See you soon J”, Harry texts and Louis is hiding a smile from himself in the mirror.

This wasn’t supposed to happen, not like this.

Later, when he is scrubbing the smell of sex from his body under the shower, he remembers the briefcase. He saw Harry putting a flash drive in it last night, when he came by for their dinner date and he knew that the codes for all the alarms in the house where there, saw Harry give it to Gemma a few times when she came by to pick things up from the basement. He needs to get it, take the code for the cabinet with the painting. Then after, when he breaks up this charade of a relationship, he is to break in and steal the painting, disappear from Cheshire forever. Or, at least, that was the plan. The plan didn’t include staying here and dating him for five months and falling in love and missing him when he was away on business meetings and Louis was supposed to study. He introduced himself as a drama student of one of those long-distance programs, working in a grocery shop and oh so accidentally throwing himself in front of Harry in the park that first time the saw each other. The lad fell for it, took him home and politely called a few times to check how was his ankle healing and well… At least Louis knew how to act, drama student or not.

He sits messing about on his laptop and waits for Harry to get back. They have a day planned out, a lunch, a walk, a movie and cuddles and other coupley stuff that Louis never did, not even when he was a simple boy living in a London orphanage, let alone when he became a professional in what he does.

Memories and guilt aside, he never gets near Harry’s office and the briefcase he knows Harry forgot there, because he always does. Maybe it’s because it doesn’t feel right, stealing form the nicest guy that could ever exist. Or maybe it’s because Louis is head over heels in love and he can’t start the end of things because he fears it would kind of feel like the end of the world. 

It’s almost noon when Harry arrives, late for their date, all messy hair and wide grin. Despite the black suit and fancy shoes, he looks adorable rather than serious. Louis pulls him in by the tie and kisses a ‘hello’ into his mouth. He tastes like chocolate coffee that Gemma keeps around the office because Harry can’t stand the strong, “grown-up” coffee. Harry lets his hands rest on Louis waist and it’s perfect, safe, makes him giddy.

“Gemma wants to meet up for dinner.”, Harry says when he pulls back a bit and Louis grins, glancing at the clock and nodding.

“You hungry?”, he asks, walking towards the fridge to see what can he heat up for Harry, ignoring the little sound of alert going off in his head about how he should stop behaving like this is his house.

But Harry chuckles and grabs at his clothes, pulling him back and into his chest. Giggle hidden in the crook of Louis’ neck he brings his hands around his waist again and whispers a “yes” before biting the shell of Louis’ ear.

“You’re insufferable.”, Louis tries deadpanning, but it falls short when Harry turns him around and scoops his legs up over his own waist. He has rarely been this small when compared to other people, has spent years trying to battle self-confidence issues because he used to eat a lot of fast food when he could afford it after the orphanage and secretly thinks he’s kind off fat, always carried an invisible burden of trying to fit in into roles and societies he was too much of something for, but Harry switched it all off. He was tiny compared to this gentle giant and he couldn’t stop loving it for a second, too amazed at how Harry could handle him, in every way possible.

So when Harry carries him to the kitchen counter and puts him down, hands sliding over Louis bum, it’s possessive and crazy and he should know better, except that he apparently doesn’t.

“You’re wearing my hoodie.”, Harry says and leans over him, making Louis stretch himself out over the counter, shrugging and smiling into kisses.

(In retrospect, three very different things happened that day. All of them brought Louis closer to the bottom of the rabbit-hole.)

(One.)

As Harry fucks into him, deep and fast as he likes to do when they have these mid-day shags, Louis can’t look away or close his eyes, stare at the celling or hide in the crook of Harry’s neck. He absolutely can’t look away from the intensity of Harry’s eyes and while he doesn’t, something builds and snaps inside, besides an orgasm. He is making love to this man. It’s intimate and comforting and devious, on his kitchen counter, and surely there could have been a more romantic place to realize this, but now it’s here, it’s undeniable. He can’t look away because he would rather die than miss a blink of that emotion that’s staring back at him. As Harry comes, he presses closer and keeps on looking, screaming silently with want and love and need and despair of clutching and never letting it slip (pun intended, because Harry is perfect in all ways). Groaning, Louis follows him over the edge and fights to keep his eyes open while trying to catch his breath. Harry’s hand on his cock doesn’t move though and he whimpers over the warmth and tingles it emits all over Louis, thighs still gripping over Harry’s waist and fingertips pressing their chests together. He has a close-up of Harry’s eyes in his vision when he finally closes his own and snuggles closer, feeling arms encircling him and fingers through his hair, combing softly.

He is fucked (this pun was also intended).

(Two.)

At dinner, Gemma smiles tightly at him, like a mother promising a scolding to a child. It surprises Louis. Gemma has been an absolute delight to meet and he is pretty sure they would be friends even if she wasn’t his (pretend) boyfriend’s sister. He shrugs it off and tries not to think about it during dinner, watching Harry inspecting Gemma’s new boyfriend of the month, careful and slightly intimidating while staring the guy down. Louis loves seeing him protective over people he loves, which, well… He wasn’t supposed to love anything of Harry’s.

It’s later, towards the end of the dinner, when the guy and Harry step outside to talk, and Gemma interrupts their usual fun of watching Harry warn Gemma’s boyfriends about respecting her and never thinking of hurting her, when Louis gets his own version of that conversation.

“My brother loves you, you know.”, she says and her voice snaps like a whip over the “my brother”. She is protective, yes, but also far more experienced and vicious, and Louis is kind of scarred. He smiles as naturally as he can and nods.

“I love him too Gems.”

His voice is warm and true, because it is the truth, no matter how fucked-up it is. She blinks at him and frowns slightly. Louis chalked it up to her protective nature, deciding to ignore the lack of an encouraging smile on her lips.

He fucked up in that decision.

(Three.)

They are walking back home, first to Louis’ tiny apartment to collect his change of clothes and then to Harry’s house when the third thing happens. Harry spins him around in a pile of leaves fallen off and golden on the ground and Louis scolds him for it, but gives in anyway, enjoys falling dramatically in Harry’s arms and breathes the autumn cold off from Harry’s hands when he presses a kiss into them.

The delighted, besotted smile is back on those lips and Harry’s eyes are glistening with excitement as he blurts it out.

“Move in with me.”

It matters a huge lot to him and Louis starts waving his head no, because he is supposed to get that code and disappear, not stick around for this, but Harry is staring at him like he can’t imagine Louis saying no.

It hurts, a lot, it complicates things and it’s just is plain mean and unnecessary, but Louis can’t break his heart before it’s absolutely necessary (it was months ago).

So he nods. And by that, he fucks someone, his special someone, over.

***

It’s the beginning of December when Louis slips on the street and twists his ankle. He is talking with Harry on the phone when it happens and he remains calm and collected, knowing that the ankle is likely to misbehave ever since he twisted it the first time, running from the police after his first (successful) theft. But Harry overreacts and speeds from the house before the ambulance arrives, giving the locals a show: the son of Cheshire’s wealthiest family comes to rescue his sweetheart, sitting stupidly on the icy road and apparently awaiting his Prince Charming. It’s not how Louis likes to look at things, because he called his own ambulance after it was evident that he will not be able to walk anywhere, sat down and politely declined any help offered, not wanting to be a bother. But Harry doesn’t offer help, he lifts him from the ground and carries him to the car, like they are in a Disney movie. Really, the only thing lacking from the scene was the townspeople’s applause. Gemma later claims that is was involved, but Louis gets seriously offended. It amuses her even more.

It gives him an excuse to not do anything about the necessary end of things. But mostly, it makes him terrified that he somehow managed to cripple himself severely and if anyone tries seeing his medical records, at least some of the truths will be revealed. Neither of those things happen. The medical records are not sought after Louis claims he never went to the doctor in about 15 years (which is true) and even though the Styles’ family doctor is outraged, he stops asking questions and opens a new set of records. Harry is about to overreact with requests of complete check-ups as soon as possible, but Louis pleads with him not to do it.

But he also can’t end things now. It’s a valid excuse and has nothing to do with the way Harry behaves, feeding him pancakes and snuggling in front of the fireplace with mugs of hot chocolate. It’s like their own little greeting ceremony to the first snow and it’s magical enough to make Louis believe that it perhaps could be like this forever.

He could admit who he is and what he came here to do and how he doesn’t want to do it, not really and not anymore, screw being a professional he was thought to be. Harry would understand, perhaps, and the guilt would just stop. It’s a nice fantasy, but Louis is also truly aware that that’s all it is.

Harry wouldn’t accept it. He was raised to be a responsible, honest man and how could he ever understand that Louis fought hard to engrave the art of stealing anything from anyone under his skin? He would never be fine with the fact that the drama student he thinks he’s dating took advantage of him. There are just lies behind and by keeping quiet, Louis makes sure there are only lies ahead too.

“It needs to stop.”, he repeats to the bathroom mirror, getting ready to go out there and find that code and just finish it. But he doesn’t and it’s obvious he’s waiting for something, a magical solution, a Cinderella moment perhaps. He doesn’t find out what it is until the 23rd of December.

They are preparing Christmas celebrations and Louis is still resisting it. He never used to celebrate Christmas, not even as a child, later it seemed obsolete. But the yearning to find a place where he would feel at home enough to actually have his own tree has always been swimming right under the surface of his well-kept resistance. He can’t accept that this is home though, so he still tries his best to not participate. Harry is devastated of course, for all of 15 minutes that Louis manages to keep his resolve and not give in to the blinking, big, damn green eyes.  
Harry picks out several gifts for people and signs the cards as from “Harry and Louis”. Halfway through what he calls “the first batch” of gifts, he turns around and blinks at Louis, frowning.

“Do you want me to write your name first? I don’t mind, maybe I should mix it up?”

The stuff that Louis has to deal with are above any reasonable limit of human resistance. The devil would be tempted by Harry Styles to try climbing up to heaven and begging for forgiveness, who is Louis Tomlinson to fool himself?

“Why don’t you let me write some?”, he asks and Harry smiles wide, nodding like an excited child and picks out a pen for him.

He ends up picking out a few presents, for aunts and friends that are going to receive things through the mail, people lingering over Harry’s life long enough for it not to be polite to send nothing, but not long enough to be there on actual Christmas day.

Harry is excited about everything. When they meet up with Gemma for a cup of coffee, he talks Louis’ ear off about his or that, not paying any attention to his tired sister, who seems more interested in the horoscope from the newspaper.  
“What’s your sign Louis?”, she asks, directly interrupting Harry’s chatter, but he pays her no mind as he keeps talking.

“Capricorn.”, Louis says and turns back around to Harry. It’s important to him to have someone’s full attention while he talks and he never asked, but Louis always gives it to him, nodding along and smiling as much as he can in response to questions that Harry answers himself a second later.

“Can you imagine Louis, next year, a big celebration in front of the town hall, we can fund a charity for the local orphanage, think about it, that’s how we will celebrate our second Christmas together…”

Louis shuts him off, frozen in place because “next year”?! It’s kind of like Harry is asking for something again and Louis will never say no, even if it ends up killing him, but how…? This man is planning a life according to Louis, planning a future with him, as if he is so sure of what he has, while really he hasn’t got the faintest idea of who he has. Still in shock, he hears Gemma’s question only faintly but responds anyway and Harry promptly shuts up.

“Your birthday is coming up then?”

“Yeah, it’s tomorrow.”

Gemma snaps her head up at that and stares at Harry open- mouthed, so Louis has to turn to him once more, to see a confused, horrified expression, eyes wide and mouth slack.

“Tomorrow?! How… Why didn’t you tell me?!”

The thing is, Louis has half a mind still wrapped around the fact that Harry is willing to keep him for a year of their lives more, so it’s a bit hard to be surprised at Harry shouting, because Harry never shouts. Not at Louis, at least. He shrugs it away, looking down and biting his lip in an attempt to hide it. No, there will be no explaining about how he was that baby, left in an orphanage on Christmas, a gift that someone apparently didn’t give a shit about.

“Louis!”, Harry snaps at him again, sounding truly angry.

“I don’t usually celebrate my birthday.”, he says in his defense, still looking at his lap. Gemma clears her throat and disappears from the table, sensing an outburst of emotion coming on. And she is right.

Harry lifts Louis’ head by the chin up, chases his look and smiles, soft and tender and sad.

“You do from now on.”, he says and then leans in, places a simple kiss on Louis’ cheek and hugs him.

No matter how many times he repeated that is really doesn’t matter, because he never celebrates his birthday and he doesn’t need to do it now, being tougher than that at least (and he is, honestly, from the chaos of his life, the abandonment issues can’t even try boiling up to the surface), Harry nods and smiles and shrugs and blatantly ignores him.

He is driving Louis home to drop him off before “going somewhere” when they pass that orphanage that Harry was talking about. Louis is planning on a sexual activity that he is going to initiate in order to distract Harry from going out and buying that present, because he never got presents from people who mattered to him, and starting now it a bad idea. Has been all the while. But Harry parks the car and honks to get someone’s attention, Louis’ head snapping in the direction of a few children playing on a basketball field in front of a shiny, warm-looking building. h=He gets out of the car, grabbing something from the backseat and runs toward the children. Louis sits and watches as Harry finds the boy, some boy (could’ve been him actually many years ago) and bends down to hug him and ruffle his hair, smiling wide as he gives him the gift in red wrapping paper.

“Johnny.”, Louis remembers from the card, the one Harry signed with his name only.

The boy is ecstatic, jumps around Harry and flings himself back into his outstretched arms. The cuddle doesn’t last for long and Louis is kind of grateful. That smile on Johnny’s face, honest surprise that someone cares for him enough to pay attention to him personally, it’s what Louis knows how to wear. The rest of this life may be pretend, but that smile right there belongs to Louis’ true existence and he loses the count of times he has to choke back tears while watching the exchange.

Harry doesn’t notice when he comes back to the car, mostly because he is staring at the boy again, talking with his friends now, huddled over the gift. Louis smiles like he encourages it all and pats Harry’s hand, a silent question that Harry understands, of course.

“I’d introduce you, but Johnny would never pay attention once a gift is presented. I’ve been coming here for 5 years and he always looks like he’s honestly surprised that I came back. Same thing when Gemma comes for his birthday.”, he explains, still staring at the boy.

Louis clears his throat to stop the words from coming out, ones that would confirm that, yes, that boy will never ever believe that anyone would come back just for him. The syndrome of growing up lonely is that you never learn how not to be.

“Why is he here?”, Louis asks and Harry shakes his curls into his eyes, starting the car and not looking at Louis still, lost in his own thoughts.

“His parents died in a car accident 5 years ago. He was in the car with them, fell through the window and rolled off before the car exploded. Gemma was present, it happened just close to the house. He clung to her for some reason until the ambulance and police arrived and she’s been visiting ever since. Mum and I also picked up the habit, helped fund the reconstruction of the building and stuff like that. Part of the plan is opening of the new wing, that celebration that I told you about, next Christmas.”, he turns around to look at Louis briefly toward the end. What he sees is a fond expression trained into obedience, but inside, Louis is on fire.

“Seems like a nice kid.”, he says, just to say something, because there are no words for this in his mind, just a blank abyss of regret and guilt.

“He is. Adorable, smart, funny. They’re all nice kids. I always thought…”, Harry stops there and trails off, having Louis turn to him this time.

“What?”, he grabs Harry’s hand on the gearshift, knowing that he needs touch sometimes to ground him, sensitive and spacey as he is.

“I think I want to adopt a child like him one day. From the orphanage, you know? Someone to make them stop being surprised when people care for them.”, he squeezes Louis’ hand but has to look to the front, there is a turn that requires shifting gears and careful driving and Louis thanks God for it.

Squeezing Harry’s hand back, he shuts his eyes and breathes in, trying to stop the onslaught of everything flooding his mind. One thought jumps to the front of his brain and it flashes across his eyelids.

“And that’s the man you want to steal from.”

It feels horrible and he almost starts sobbing right there and then. He resists, because if he pretended this long, he can always keep it up for a little while. Just a while. A decision dawns on him and he touches Harry lightly, calls for his attention and gives him a smile, that same smile that Johnny had, dusts it off from the backs of his personal history and Harry blinks at him, confused and smiles back only slightly. Louis isn’t hurt. This isn’t about what he gets, but what he gives to this man. It’s important to at least try showing him that he already made an orphan boy stop being surprised about love.

They are home and Harry parks and waits for Louis to exit, not even trying to hide the delight shining on his face. He’s going to get some expensive, ridiculous, adorable gift and insist on making Louis feel like it’s the best birthday he ever had. Louis doesn’t try stopping him now, no sexual games to take his mind of things, almost no emotion shown on his face as he leaves for the house door. Harry mistakes it for his reluctance to celebrate in the first place and drives of quickly, probably thinking that he has only a little time before Louis figures out the innocent lie about “stuff to do” and gets more pissed off for spending money or paying attention.

Entering the house, he stands in the dark hallway, fists clenched by his sides and empty eyes staring back from the mirror on the wall. There are a lot of mirrors in this house, open, airy, obvious. A perfect place to hide a fraud. But no more.

The orphanage is different, different man and different time, but that smile resurrected memories of Louis’ own benefactor, an old gentleman that sometimes came by to check on him and then collect him when he turned 18, about to start a life he knew nothing about. In time, that old man was going to teach him how to rob people and bring a lot of money back, pay off the kindness and then slave away for permission to leave and be free, finally. It was a long time ago, when he was a different, sensitive amateur and not the professional that he is today. The painting, he thinks.

“Take the code, take the painting, run and never dare looking back, because this one is probably going to chase you.”, he steels himself and walks to the office.

The briefcase is under the table, carelessly thrown because they never had anyone break in here. Who would rob a saint with an angel’s face?

The list with the codes flashes bright and white on the laptop screen and Louis scans for what he needs surgically, laughs bitterly when he realizes the codes are combinations of birthdays and initials, a whole family painted in the false sense of protection. There is always someone lurking from the shadows and waiting to take something away from you. That’s how life works. That’s the life lesson that Harry Styles will learn, as of tonight.  
The basement is cold and detached from the house, storing the entire painting collection of about 90 different canvases. It belonged to the family for a long time, lately to some uncle that adored Harry and signed it over to him when he died, with a few new ones added over the last few years. It’s expensive, but the Styles family never sold any, emotionally attached to the memory of a lost relative and only organizing exhibits from time to time. That’s how Louis found it, recognized it on-line on a photo from last year’s exhibit and planned how to retrieve it, because that exact mixture of gloomy and pastel is going to get him millions. Harry showed him, about two months ago, after Louis expressed keen (and absolutely fake) interest in Monet and his Water lilies, that were ah so conveniently shown in one of the books he was supposedly studying from for those exams he never took. Harry never explained how the family got the painting, but he did say it’s special. And that was it.

Louis doesn’t think about it, just observes the row of glass cases showing various styles, colors, black and white drawings and shaded figures he doesn’t particularly care for. The people he takes them from care for the paintings and Louis doesn’t steal them for himself, so he doesn’t need to know anything more than the market price. Which is, very, astronomically high. This was supposed to build him a name in the business, a title engraved in style and deception.

When he finally passes the rows of paintings packed into foam packing cases and neatly ordered into lines, he comes to the only wall that has the one he’s looking for displayed, dim lights and lengthened shadows dancing over it. He looks and tampers with the alarm, typing the code in and hearing the hinges creaking as he opens the case. It’s there, close enough but he still can’t steal it right now, with Harry about to get back and catch him at it. Tonight, when he falls asleep, Louis will be ready.

He controls all the emotions displayed in the reflective surfaces as he escapes upstairs to pack a bag of clothes and takes out a foam travel packing case for the painting, hidden in the side of his suitcase. The fabric of it is left torn all over when he finishes extracting the case, indication that all is not as well as he makes himself think, hands trembling a bit too much, more than on his first big job.

“You’re a professional and you need to do this now, not wait, remember it.”, he repeats and repeats and finally he believes in it, it’s evident in every corner of this house, that he doesn’t belong here and he doesn’t get to ruin Harry’s life a second longer. There were unasked questions about those children from the orphanage, proposals and adoptions that Harry was visibly planning behind that absent smile he sometimes gets, convinced that nobody will understand. But Louis did, he still does and he wants it, so bad and so much it scares the hell out of him. Attachments are not healthy, he keeps repeating to himself and makes tea for when Harry gets back, herbal with honey and no milk, how Harry likes it, not that Louis, unattached as he is, should know.

He is still looking like he’s sulking when Harry gets back and he falls for it again, embracing Louis from behind, lingering kisses over his neck and a strong grip over his waist, a weight that will always be remembered.

“Don’t be upset over it, I didn’t go and buy you a car, I swear.”, he says and Louis chuckles, thinking how that could be likely, if he ever allowed it.

“I don’t want you to buy me anything. And we’re not celebrating.”

A bit amused, Harry turns him around and stares. He sometimes does that, makes Louis fidget and blush under his gaze.

“You said you never celebrated it, and I’m not going to ask why because you don’t like to talk about your life before, I know, but why don’t we make a new tradition? Just you and I, ok?”, Harry talks to him like he’s a toddler making a fuss about his favorite toy being replaced with something, while really, if Louis can’t do traditions, it’s because they require sticking around in one place. And he’s not doing that.

“Harry, I’ve never done it with family, why…?”

There is a whole imaginary family with a lot of siblings and poorly defined issues up in Harry’s head, wondering about what damaged Louis so much, but the truth he never heard, mostly because Louis couldn’t keep acting up if there were pieces of the truth interwoven with the lies. There is no family, never has been, but Harry still tries to protect him from phantom scars and it hurts.

“Well, think about this as a new family tradition.”, Harry says and pulls him in, stopping further comments with a kiss, deep, passionate, promising. Aware that he should be saying goodbye, Louis nods and smiles a little bit, thinking how this is again indulging Harry and not himself, because he will never care as much as Harry does. Right.

They kiss for a while, slow and languid and it’s like waking up to a world of light after being trapped under the burden of what has to be done.

For the real gift, Harry goes outside again and takes something left by the door, hides it from Louis until he makes him close his eyes and then gives a bouquet of tulips to him. They are a beautiful, colorful madness of arrangement, just like Louis always liked to see. And he mentioned about loving tulips only once, months ago, but Harry keeps remembering. It’s oddly comforting, this familiarity with which Harry tries to ease him into having desires and yearnings and people to fulfill them.

“Oh.”, he says and takes the flowers from Harry, staring and smiling wide like he is simply amazed and there are no acting skills used to hide the fact that now his favorite flowers are ruined, forever, because there are no tulips that are going to be as important as these are.

They start kissing again and Harry pushes him into the wall behind him. This is going to turn into sex pretty fast, Louis knows it because he knows them, but Harry seems to like taking his time for the moment.

Louis starts thinking about how he should stop this because he is leaving tonight, stealing something from this man and abandoning him, so how is it fair to sleep with him also? But Harry is persistent, keeps groping and touching and doing the little tricks that make Louis kiss and fondle back, touching the right places and catching moans with his mouth.

“Upstairs?”, Harry asks and detaches to go ahead and walk, leaving Louis confused. Ever since the first time they did this, Harry never cared about where they were, just that there is no ending of the contact and touches. Now he breathes in and starts walking up the stairs, fingers nervously sliding through his hair. Louis hurries after him, catching up and trying his best to stop him. Harry keeps walking even when Louis sneaks his hands under and over his waist, clinging and asking, silently. The thing is, he doesn’t really know how to communicate with someone you love and who suddenly behaves weird. And he does love him. He does. There are no lies about that, because there is no other excuse for lying about everything else for so long.

“Stop baby, please.”, he finally says when they’re up the stairs and Harry listens, melting the rigid stance from his back as soon as Louis mutters the “baby”. He is though, a big, overgrown child that needs to be cuddled and loved and taken care of and that is why Louis is leaving.

“Will you tell me? Please?”, Louis asks gently, unknowingly stroking over the scared tendrils of Harry’s own decisions.

He turns around and lowers his gaze to Louis’, lip sucked between the teeth and a little bit of “scared of out my mind” visible in his eyes.

“Tell me. It’s alright, tell me.”, Louis tries again to coax it out, slides his arms over Harry’s shoulders and leans in.

Harry sighs and looks up, then smiles nervously and starts.

“I was thinking… I’ve never… you know. And I want to, with you.”

The trembling words confuse Louis though, because Harry can’t be talking about sex, they’ve done that, a million times probably. He shakes his head as to show that he doesn’t understand and Harry gets a bit frustrated at that, huffs and tries leaning away, Louis’ grip over his shoulders not letting him.

“I want you to be on top, ok?!”, he finally says and it’s like there is a metal armor weighting on Louis shoulders to slam him into the ground, because what?!

He assumed Harry is always, would forever want to be on top and he is fine with it. Secretly, he never had preferences about either way, just going with what is offered, other guys and girls before Harry and after… All that mattered was the haze that envelops him as soon as Harry is up close and that hungry look is in his eyes. He doesn’t care, would never ask for it because it never even crossed his mind to change the perfect things, but this…

“You… What?!”, he says, a bit insensitive he realizes, because Harry flinches back and looks ashamed. Ridiculous, Harry Styles ashamed about anything sex-related, but then it comes back to Louis that he just said he never had someone do that with him and oh…

“Harry, baby, calm down, just… Why would you want to do it with me?”, it escapes before he can stop it, a question about why would anyone want to give their virginity, one or the other, to someone who deceives them, but then he remembers Harry doesn’t even suspect. Louis is leaving tonight and he wants to give him something that you’re supposed to give to people that are going to stick around forever if you’re sensitive about these things as Harry is. So naturally, he has to refuse.  
“What do you mean, why? There’s never been anyone I wanted to with, before you. And it’s your birthday in a few hours, so I thought… give you the one thing I have left to give?”, Harry is quiet but certain, proud of what he offers and so, so scared that Louis is somehow going to say no. And that’s ridiculous, because his Louis, the one and only that Harry thinks he knows, he would never say no to anything Harry asks. The criminal that’s been living in his house for months might have to say no though, because how will he else live with himself when he leaves? You can’t take that much of someone and just go.

“Harry…”, he starts, but there is a trembling boy in a man’s body in front of him to stop the words.

“I get it, you don’t want it, it’s fine, we can do it like we always do, alright? It’s fine Louis, let’s go to bed.”, he is quick to dismiss everything and Louis stares at the trembling lips and moist eyes and God… He can’t even bring himself to reject him now, how the fuck is he supposed to leave him?

“Wait.”, he says it because it isn’t wise or thought-through, but it has to be done. The fairytale ends tonight, yes, but Louis’ side of the story. If he just does this, this one time, loves this man hard enough tonight, maybe he’ll have something to cling to later. Something true, honest, something forever. It’s the stupidest thing Louis will ever do, the meanest and cruelest too, but he does it anyway, because Harry is asking for it and he can never say no. Now, if only Harry could ask of him to tell him the truth and not leave him and to forget about being a professional thief for a century or so.

“Louis, it’s fine…”, Harry interrupts again, turned away and distant. Louis can’t have that, not if he’s to be the Prince Charming tonight.

“I want it, I do, don’t be daft you idiot, anything you want, I’ll do it. Just, you know… Are you sure you want me to be the one? Really, really sure?”, he asks and Harry turns around and stares at him again.

“Yes, absolutely.”

He is sure, this will hurt and it’s horrible, but Louis reaches out and takes his hand anyway.

“It would be my pleasure then. Come here.”, he pulls him in and starts the kisses he dreamed off, once upon a time when he was about to lose this to another man. It hurt, then, during and after, but Harry is going to hurt tomorrow and a while after that, so Louis will be damned if anything hurts him tonight. He slides his hands over this man like he wanted to be touched and how Harry touched him the first time they had sex and it works, because he melts into the touches and releases a breath he was holding.

“Slow, ok?”, he cups Harry’s face and walks him backward into his (theirs) room. Harry nods and puts his hands over Louis’, smiling softly.

He pulls at the back of Harry’s hoodie and when it slides over his head and down, there is a messy-haired idiot smiling back, giggling right along with Louis at the ridiculousness of this. Stumbling forward, he pushes Harry to sit on the bed, sinking immediately to his knees in front of him.

Harry keeps holding a new breath while Louis unzips his jeans and slips a hand inside, cupping wickedly tight at he knows Harry likes. Nodding for him to take the jeans and boxers off, he sits up to find lube in the bedside cupboard. It’s a quick pause but it makes him nervous, conscious of what he’s about to do. Even if they were a regular couple and him a man without the burden of fake identities on his back, this right here what’s he about to do would scare him beyond words. Harry is naked and sitting down when Louis looks up, so certain and equally nervous, so he tries to gather himself, thinking how at least one of them has to be calm.

“Spread your legs.”, he says and even though it sounds properly filthy, it makes Harry giggle a little bit, making Louis look up and stare. This is what he wants to cherish, a boy so in love he giggles at the mere sound of his voice, nervous, but ready, so ready just for Louis.  
He does and when Louis spreads his knees in a comfortable kneeling position and leans forward to take Harry’s cock into his mouth, it’s a sigh he hears, choking and prominent in the otherwise silent room. He strokes across Harry’s thighs and hums around the head, sliding down a little bit and swirling his tongue around, Harry’s hips lifting up as they follow the movement.

“Shh…”, he breaths against the shaft, fingers steady on Harry’s thighs now, thumbs caressing little circles across.

“God, Louis…”, Harry breaths out and looks up again. Louis takes his chance and pours the lube across the fingers of his right hand, looks up again and observes the line of Harry’s throat, stretched out and fragile, white skin and blood he thinks he can hear the sound of rushing beneath.

“Look at me love, come on.”, he whispers against the shaft again and Harry obeys, snappy and quick and then just freezes, eyes on Louis’ as he swallows again, deep and tighter now. Harry moans and fidgets, but doesn’t lift his hips up again, fights to keep them still as he stares down, pupils blown wide. Slowly, Louis sucks harder and brings his fingers close to Harry’s hole, teasing around it but not touching the rim. Harry gasps and mutters something, never breaking eye contact and Louis goes for a gentle stroke across the rim as a reward.

Teasing turns to probing as Harry keeps moaning above, quiet but there, evidently beyond himself with what is being done to him. Deciding to quit teasing, Louis pushes a little bit of his finger inside him and the reaction is ridiculously delighted. He doesn’t stop the sucking, just pushes further and it stretches Harry out slowly, tight and warm and inviting inside, Louis is getting hard himself. When he has an entire finger inside, he takes Harry out of his mouth and watches for signs of pain but there’s only the stare, the same stare and a hint of a smile on his lips. Taking his finger out, he pours more lube on them and teases across his entrance again, Harry pouts and it’s adorable.

“Can you take two?”, he asks and Harry nods eagerly, so Louis gives it to him, slow but firm and steady and when he is all the way in he starts scissoring slowly. Harry’s hips buck down at that, but Louis doesn’t have him in his mouth now, so he lets him to it. After a while, he twists sharply, thinking how he needs to touch that spot now or stop doing this, because if he’s not doing it properly, he’s not going to do it at all. He does though, Harry’s hips jump forward quickly and he breaks eye contact to throw his head back and yell. There are no moans after that, only half-contained screams and whimpers when Louis takes his fingers out to aim at it again. Harry looks like he’s going to come, so Louis pushes a third finger inside and that makes Harry wince and shake his head. Pulling out, Louis is about to climb up the bed and convince him that they don’t need to do this, because from now on it hurts. Harry reaches out and grips Louis’ arm though, gripping firmly and keeping it inside him and fuck if this isn’t a sure way to make Louis come in his pants before he even comes near him.

“Keep going, please.”, he croaks out, voice scratchy as if he was the one giving a blowjob a moment ago. Louis frowns but Harry is impatient and frowns back, bringing his hips down until he is impaling himself on Louis’ fingers and fuck…

He doesn’t stop then, keeps fingering until there are moans again, louder and freer this time. Harry starts talking, “yes” and “there” and “Louis”, so he takes that as a sign that it’s time for more.

There is fear again in Harry’s eyes when Louis gets up to take his clothes of.

“You don’t need to do it. Not now, not ever.”, he says, leaning forward to cup his face between his hands, but Harry is shaking his head.

“No, it’s not that. I just thought you’re about to leave or something.”

After he says it, Louis is left staring, gaping like a fish because that is the only thing this man is afraid of. And the only thing that Louis can’t ever do for him is stay.

He shakes his head and peels his pants down, stepping out and not looking at Harry while leaning towards him and pushing until he’s lying over him at the end of the bed. Never looking at the eyes he couldn’t stop staring at a minute ago, Louis snuggles closer until he’s breathing against Harry’s cheek, steady and calm but trembling in fractions, aftershocks of all that he did and what he’s about to do. Harry is breathing heavy under him, gasping and frozen still, like moving is going to make Louis disappear.

“Louis. I want it. With you, please…”, he begs vocally, as if the hard cook poking at Louis’ thigh wasn’t indication enough.

There is no going back now, so he leans forward a bit and finds Harry’s ear, whispers as soft as he can:

“I’m here.”  
And it’s not a lie. And he does do it, spreads Harry’s legs and stretches him out a bit before pushing in. It’s slow and he’s worried and aroused and it drives him absolutely crazy, but Harry is groaning and there are only three winces at which Louis starts pulling out. Harry hisses at him not to dare doing it every time and then he’s as deep as he can go, shaky hands holding him above just barely, because the heat and the grip Harry has him in is beyond this world. It feels… Strange, because Louis could have sworn he won’t be surprised, has done this a fair amount of times, but it’s different. Kind of like walking the street that you thought you knew and then having it show you a whole another world one day. Ridiculous, but that’s how he feels, or how he thinks he feels, because he barely has time or will power to think about himself now.

Harry opens the eyes that were scrunched shut and then it’s all downhill again, an abyss in which Louis falls and falls and can’t stop falling because he is so very much vulnerable, exposed, plain raw emotion bursting through and Louis can’t take it. He leans in, folding Harry’s legs further up his own back (where Harry grips him immediately), finds Harry’s mouth and kisses him breathless, pumping in and out and losing composure totally. Giving in into all this means that his brain finally catches up with the fact that he is in Harry, he is doing this with him. It’s called making love, yes, even though Louis won’t be able to remember, or forget soon, but it is what it is.

“I love you.”, he hears and then it’s the absolute horror of knowing that he said it. Harry is looking at him like he can’t believe what he just heard and is willing to ask him to repeat please. Which he doesn’t have to, because Louis keeps repeating it between the kisses, the force of it stealing his judgement and making him laugh and love and say it, out in the open a thousand times, chasing each of Harry’s gasps around with his lips and those words and it smacks him in the chest that he is only saying this now, when it’s been true since probably the first time he ever looked and really saw who Harry was.

When he comes, it’s Harry’s turn to snap out if it for a split second to respond back that:

“Fuck Lou, love you too, so much.”, and then he’s losing it right along with Louis.  
It’s the shag of a lifetime, except that it isn’t a shag at all and this just complicated things a lot. He slips out of Harry and rolls beside him, not having a split second to move before a body cuddles to him, warm hands and sweaty skin, but Louis hugs him and grips like nothing will ever separate them.

“Thank you.”, Harry breathes into Louis chest and he gets a hand over his shoulders squeezing him tighter still and a kiss to his sweaty forehead.

“Thank you.”, Louis says back and Harry giggles again.

“Thank you for being you and making me ruin both of our lives, because you kept asking and I never refused and here we are, you gave it your all and I got more than I can handle.”, he says to the celling, silently inside his head and keeps holding Harry until his breaths even out. Asleep, he looks like an angel and Louis wants to go call on all those romantic assholes of the entire human history to come and see what a sleeping angel really looks like and how they should’ve never, ever, turn it into a cliché before its time, there was always going to be just one Harry.

Untangling from Harry’s lanky arms is a bit harder than he expected and throwing that last look at him was a lot harder than he hoped it would be. Still he keeps walking once he takes the first step, a bag with his belongings over the shoulder the last shadow falling over Harry as he remains asleep. The code works perfectly and the painting falls into the case perfectly, mechanically almost. The doors at the front of the mansion don’t make a sound as Louis leaves, because he sneaks out through the garage door, runs over the yard and jumps over the fence.

A couple of kilometers away, he steals a car in Cheshire and drives away. He’s in Manchester by the morning, when Harry wakes up and calls his name, thinking how strange it is that he didn’t feel Louis slipping away.

***

There is a thin trickle of blood running down his chin and chest to soak the white fabric that’s been ripped sometime in the process of trying to land a decent punch while drunk out of his mind. Louis sways and the street is blurry but still he manages to turn away from the cars and stumble along the way, familiar with the 10 minute walk he needs to endure in order to get to the apartment. The cut on his lip stings, but the blood seeping out is slowly drying off and if Louis could manage not smiling like an idiot every 2 seconds, maybe it would have a chance to start healing. There is a faint shout behind him, but he pays it no mind, determined to not confront, because that is certainly not his forte.

This guy has been bigger than they usually are, completely sober and muscly and prepared to kick ass if someone asked for it, and Louis obviously had. It didn’t take much to be honest, a lewd look to the girl the guy was with, a drunken slur about how she should maybe consider spreading her legs for a better guy and so it went, just like last week and the one before that and so on. He is a jerk, a complete and utter dick to rile people up when he isn’t even interested (the girl had blue eyes, not green, so who the fuck asked her to bat her eyelashes at him?), but the truth is that Louis is doing this for his own sick enjoyment. He picks the aggressive ones out, every weekend, and when they swing their fists back, he closes his eyes and imagines that it’s Harry hitting him. It feels good, deserved, almost makes him ecstatic to pay and bleed and hurt because that is exactly what he had coming.

On other days, he sometimes gets simply drunk and ends up sleeping on a park bench, woken up by police officers asking why he isn’t home. He laughs, thinking how ridiculous would it be to try explaining that he left home to do this to himself. Honestly, he never gave it much thought about life after he left, had a vague idea that it’s going to go back to how it was, but the problem is that he can’t even remember how it felt not being choked by guilt and having to drink to make it breathable, only to remember something, a kiss, a smile, a moment or a look. It made him hate himself more each time.

When he doesn’t go out, he sleeps on the floor in a shady little pretense of a home he rented as soon as he got to London. He gets drunk then too, usually vodka or tequila because he knows Harry hates to see him drink either and how it makes him… moody. He lies on the wooden floor and looks and looks and stares. Propped up against the wall across from him, there is the painting. He never sold it, didn’t even try, aware that it would rip him apart to lose the one thing he managed to save from the whole mess, the one thing he went in for and that he would give everything never to have seen at all. The lilies are supposed to be fucking calming, or at least people used to tell him so, but this… It’s like the pits of hell have been etched into his brain, each time he stares at it and it hurts.

Misery is what he became good at and recovery is never on his mind, to wrapped up in guilt, guilt, guilt and occasional feeling sorry for himself. Somewhere in the tiny personalized hell he created for himself, there is a cell phone with six messages on it, about a thousand missed calls and a final word that crumbled each and every bone in Louis’ body.

Where are you baby? Not cool leaving me alone in this cold bed, hurry up!

Louis swore to himself, a lifetime ago, that he will never despair over what he can’t have in life. A lot of things weren’t ever available to an orphan, but he decided early on that he was going to steal what he could and what he couldn’t, he would train himself to stop wishing for it. It failed spectacularly, he thinks.

Louis, seriously, where are you? Pick up the damn phone!

He also promised himself that he would never hurt people for the heck of it. It was easy for an unattached, intelligent individual to think about how he could do it. The thing is, he didn’t want that. He wanted people to keep ignoring and overlooking who he is, letting him in just enough for him to glimpse a way of stealing what he wanted and then he would be gone, leaving someone lighter for a materialistically valued good, but never paying attention on the supposed passer-by who relieved them of it. He didn’t cheat his way into people’s lives, it was a rule because pain was not what he wanted to be associated with, just anonymity. That one he also fucked up spectacularly this one time he tried doing it differently, he thinks.

Please pick it up, please, I don’t care if you’re angry or want out of this, I just want to know you’re fine, please baby.

One of the rules has always been that he’s never going to be anything but professional. It’s a job, just like any other, and never would he invest more of himself into it than he could get back in money. The most expensive thing he has ever stolen though is right in front of him though, but the price was his entire life and sanity and heart. Not only his, by the looks of it. Maybe it’s the thought of bringing too much pain to him and witnessing it through a few messages that makes Louis lose his mind completely.

I called the police and they found the footage of you running down the street from an ATM and I don’t get it Louis, if you weren’t happy you could have told me. I swear I would understand. I love you? If that even makes a difference? Did it ever?

The most ironic thing is that Louis can’t remember what he called happiness before he accidentally ran into Harry. There was delight to find a job that will make him earn enough to travel somewhere, climb a mountain, buy a motorbike, whatever. Then there was relief when he didn’t get caught, especially that first time when he didn’t really know what he was doing. In the brief moments when he was with his benefactor, the master of London thieves and he sometimes felt pride at the false praise he got. Then there was the fun of fooling someone and getting away with it. But never before that encounter in the park when Harry blinked down at him and hurried to help, when the world tilted (because he is sure now that he loved him from then even), has he felt as happy as with Harry. He was halfway to typing back to him when he got the message the fourth day upon arriving to London, phone charged properly so it could ring with Harry’s ringtone all through the night, Louis staring at the celling and imagining Harry frantically dialing and dialing and dialing… He was close to picking up many times, but the closest was after the fourth message, just a simple replay, a sentence or two of text that would make Harry realize that it’s fine to hate him, it’s required even.

Something along the lines of: It makes all the difference in the world love, but this is really all me and not you. Never you.

Or: I could have told you a lot of things, lies and truth both, but I never could have told you that I wasn’t happy, the world would probably implode with the absurdity of that.

I keep thinking about it. Why? I don’t get it Louis and I couldn’t have been so bad that I don’t even deserve an explanation.

Yet another thing is that Louis never explains stuff, not to other people who pass through his life, not to himself. He thinks of a plan, does it, then steers away from questioning, vary of the day when he will realize that he is a criminal, an idiot, a cruel jackass who fucked people up because he couldn’t have bothered with a decent profession. But explaining it to Harry… He doesn’t break that rule. He can lie to himself as much as he wants that it’s about not hurting Harry even more and providing him with a clear break, but really what has Louis terrified is knowing that he would have to face him. Look him right in the eye and tell him it was all a lie and then go the fuck away, again and he can’t do that because seeing even a glimpse of disappointed and broken Harry would be fatal. He is a coward, selfish, self-indulgent coward, yes, but he’s in love and that doesn’t justify it, but it is what it is.

He’s not even sure about what would he say if he tried explaining and there is always a possibility of lying again, from a distance and cold hearted, making Harry suffer but giving him a chance to some day move on, just… This isn’t right. He can’t lie again, it would be plain idiotic.

So he keeps quiet and says nothing, staring away the longer silences between ringtones night by night and then, two months after, they finally stop. Louis wonders, but doesn’t allow himself to get sad. He does anyway. His special boy has forgotten about him, or so he thinks. Then the last message arrives and he really should have known.

Gemma went to the basement for the first time a week ago and she realized and wouldn’t tell me until she secretly had fingerprints analyzed and now I know. Be calm though, I won’t press any charges. You don’t deserve to have me chasing you around anymore. I hope you got what you wanted in the proper amount. Truthfully, I think you are a monster. Never come near me again. I won’t contact you. If I see you just one more time Louis, even in passing, your life will be over. Stay away. And fuck you.

It hurts like hell but there is a perverse amount of pleasure in the pain. This time, it’s only Louis feeling it. Harry has a way to move on now and it’s done. Over with. The boy with the green eyes can have many happy endings after this fuck up and he’ll forget soon enough. Yes, Louis is a monster, but at least now the angel knows to stay away and it’ll be good.

It’s horrible but it sooths the guilt so Louis welcomes it. Sometimes, he even gets high and then he thinks about Harry like he’s still with him, close and warm and loving. It’s a special kind of pain to wake up from a dream like that, but he does anyway, he tortures himself and it feels good.

The painting is the only thing he pays any attention to anymore and there are brief moments of insanity when he imagines himself ripping it to pieces and hanging himself with them, but that seems a bit too melodramatic for his taste. Also, life is to be suffered through for monsters.

 

***

It’s after six months that he sits in a pub in the middle of the afternoon and sees it. His self-destruction is much more silent these days, slightly afraid that he will attract the attention of the wrong people and have them snoop around his life until they somehow connect him to Harry. In Cheshire, they were a familiar sight, but here in London, no one knows and never will and that’s how Louis wants it to stay.

The pub which he frequently spends his days in is a family establishment of the Payne family, nice and polite people who don’t ask a lot of questions and if their son sometimes keeps an eye out for Louis when he starts his morning walks to the flat, Louis pretends he doesn’t notice and Liam, the innocent soul that he is, never asks any questions as he brings him drinks. It’s to be expected, to be left alone, because this is a city where a lot of people stopped caring a long time ago about strangers. A perfect fit, actually. Back home in Cheshire, there was a couple Harry and Louis were neighbours with and they bothered to ask questions when Harry was sick or Louis in a bad mood. But this is London and that Liam guy has definitely no more chances of becoming Louis’ friend than Niall and Zayn had back in Cheshire, polite and nice and perfectly adequate as they were.

The alcohol helps still, but sometimes Louis needs a break to rest before he kills himself and it’s on one of those days, when he is sitting and sipping on mineral water in the corner when the TV catches his attention. It shouldn’t have happened, of course it shouldn’t, but Louis has the worst luck there is. The show is some British celebrities tracking bullshit and he would never give a flying fuck about it, but then there is a report about some supposedly well-known London actor that is rising to fame( as if Louis would know something like that!) and a rumored fling he’s having with the son of the social royalty of Cheshire. Louis whips his head up just in time to see him, a James Dean-wannabe in a leather jacket and smoking a cigarette as he drags a lanky, tall lad out on the street from some posh London pub and it smacks Louis right in the chest when the next photograph comes along. It is Harry, stumbling about on the street, obviously drunk and squinting at the flashing lights while trying to see where is he being dragged off to, but the grip on his arm is steady and he is pushed into a limo in one of the next frames. The words being said are flying over Louis head while he grips the table in a desperate attempt to not slip to the floor. He thinks that he should’ve gotten drunk, then he wouldn’t notice, would never see and would’ve been equally miserable just imagining Harry with someone else. But to actually have a face to go with what he imagined, that slashes across him somewhere deep inside. He wants to go find that guy and rip his throat out and then eat his heart like some sick, deranged sociopath. Absolutely hating him, he is halfway to a course of action that will bring him on that path, making the bastard pay for ever touching Harry, getting him drunk, dragging him in front of the paps like he isn’t the most precious person that needs delicacy and love and… Then he remembers that Harry has a right to choose and he is going to choose, some fish out of the sea and there is nothing Louis has to say about it. Ever.

When he stumbles inside his apartment, it’s midnight and he has bruises all over his back from being pushed into the bathroom wall after he insulted someone, cuts on his fists and a swollen eye from that guy he took a swing at randomly and apparently an unfulfilled death wish, because Liam intervened and bothered to drag him out of the pub and direct him to what he called home. Oh, and there is rage, despair, utter desire to peel his own skin off and he doesn’t hear Liam’s mother shouting after him that he needs to put a stop to this. Until now, he didn’t want to, now he simply can’t.

His dreams are filled with a moaning, giggling Harry, getting fucked like he liked it , but the guy leaning over him is the blond motherfucker he saw on the telly today and Harry is happy, satisfied, a mess of whimpers as he breathes some other name. His bed is covered in vomit in the morning.

***

TV is his best companion from then on. It’s a bitter new kind of torture and he succumbs to it willingly, waiting to get hurt again. Harry doesn’t appear anymore though. That idiot he was photographed does, wrapped around a redhead boy with too many tattoos and a sweet smile. They look like they’re in love and Harry is mentioned as a bump on the road for them and Louis is half relieved, half horrified, because who the fuck doesn’t choose Harry Styles over anyone else?! Louis, apparently, so he gets more fuel for self-hating sessions, without the numb of the alcohol this time, just him and the sharp, piercing truth.

Liam from the pub asks him this time, says that something is obviously wrong, so why doesn’t Louis try to get it sorted before he ends up killing himself.

“That’s the plan sweetheart. Now fuck off.”, he says back and Liam never tries again, scorned and hurt apparently, but it’s not like Louis minds breaking any of his rules now.

He buys a bunch of magazines too, but Harry is absent. Louis thinks of the threat Harry gave him in the last message sent and how he should maybe go look for him. Not to pour salt on the wounds, but maybe to try checking up on how Harry is recovering from the new ones, because obviously he has forgotten all about Louis by now, right.  
It works, the conviction, for long enough. Louis imagines Harry that doesn’t even remember that there was a guy who came and fucked him up completely, a smiling, charming creature preparing that Christmas day celebration he mentioned, making orphans happy and dreaming of a another guy that will come by and build a future with him, get married, adopt one of those kids. Louis dreams of being an old man and encountering a young man with the last name Styles, all proper gentleman and his father’s charm, brave and happy and thankful. Louis would ask him about his parents and maybe the lad would smile proudly and say how his fathers have a perfect marriage and how he always has a home to come back to and so on, until there are tears streaming down his face and the TV program has turned to static.

Missing someone you yourself pushed away is hard business. Missing someone you stomped on is even harder.

Then one day he turns the TV as soon as he gets up and there is Gemma on it. Louis’ jaw drops and he stares as she talks away. What he gathers is that they were making a TV show about the heritage of wealthiest UK families and Gemma is eloquently perfect in entertaining with anecdotes of how they got this or that. She looks a lot like him, just a little bit less innocent, which would be in perfect accordance with the truth, to be honest.

Louis is grasping at straws when she starts talking about their mother and father living abroad and how Harry and her take care of all the possessions in the country. The interviewer asks about the most prized possession that they have, something of sentimental value.

“There was a painting with us until recently. A Monet, from the Water Lilies series. It was a gift to our great-grandmother by her late husband, he gave it to her when she got pregnant and then he was killed in World War II. He never met the child, my grandfather, so his mother passed the painting on. We were all raised with stories about it, about what it meant to her and to the family in the long run, his bravery and how badly she mourned after him. A romantic story really.”, she says and the interviewer nods. Louis is digging fingers into his thighs absent mindedly, leaving crescent-shaped marks and undoubtedly bruises, but he pays no mind to it. The monstrosity of what he’s done strikes back with full force but he can’t look away.

“You said the painting is not with you anymore? Why is that?”, the interviewer asks and Gemma shrugs, sad eyes and fidgety fingers.

“No, the painting is no longer with us sadly. I personally had a tough time letting go of something like that, but Harry was even worse, he was really close to our grand-grandmother, being the youngest grandchild she had before she passed away, so it hit him hard to let go of it. But there is nothing to do anymore, it is how it is.”

Louis bites down into his hand and rocks back and forth for a while before he can breathe properly. Gemma didn’t mention the horrifying part of that story, that the painting was stolen from them by a man who seduced his way into Harry’s bed, a monster, true and horrible. It’s one of those things that would make him scoff and say that people should be careful about their choices, but now, he is guiltier than ever. Pain has no limits apparently, just when you think you have gotten properly introduced, it smashes from a different angle and rips you apart.

Tired of the tears and the constant attempts to let go of it, that never work, he makes a decision that will shut this door forever.

He packs the painting up and runs to the post office several blocks away. He knows the address by heart, still thinks of it as home in some twisted, fucked up way. When the package has been sent, he goes back to his apartment and figures he has about a day before Harry gets it and maybe three or four more before he manages to find him, if he starts looking. It’s farfetched, but it’s a possibility and Louis can’t have that happening. He plans to pack and leave the country and put that last amount of distance between them, because this might reopen some of Harry’s wounds and he’d better not do that.

It’s three more days, he thinks, so he goes out and gets drunk and drags himself back to the darkness of the apartment and passes out. He’ll pack the miserable amount of things he has tomorrow.

The empty space by the wall that was occupied by the painting is glaring at him but he turns his back to it and dives into restless sleep.

***

He’s woken up by loud banging on his door. Frowning, he lifts his head up and the room is spinning life a rollercoaster, but at last nothing hurts. Yet. There are no people in London, or anywhere that would be storming up to his door to knock because the want or need to see him. So either the building is on fire, or someone got the wrong door.

He slumps back onto the mattress and moans when whoever it is doesn’t stop hitting the door like something is seriously urgent and what the hell would it be when Louis has no urgencies in his life? He’s bitchier than usual when the noise finally gets him to drag himself over the wooden floor and across a tiny living room to the front door. There are no spaces or corners in this place, so he doesn’t get why anyone would want inside. Far and away through the smudgy windows, there is the afternoon sun of one cloudy, soon rainy London day, but details don’t register too clearly because of the noise from outside.

There are no chains or special locks on the door, just a key that he turns two times, surprised that he even remembered to lock it yesterday, as drunk as he was, and then the door is opened. The world stops, or Louis prays to God that it does, because he fears that any breath of motion would make him faint right now. It’s Harry. Frowning, furious Harry with his fists raised up to bang on the door again, sharp and unforgiving eyes scanning over Louis and it cuts, it punches, it kills.

He doesn’t move from the doorway as he stares, drinking him in and thinking “HOW?!”, when he sent that painting yesterday and there is no way you can track someone in less than a day.

Harry stares back, pale and tired looking and it shows, it’s evident that he hasn’t smiled in a while, frown painted on his once soft features like it belongs there and Louis wants to sit down and cry a bit before he moves anywhere else, because Harry. Heavy breaths come of his chest and the thick black coat does nothing to hide them expanding and collapsing and they just look at each other.

Frankly, Louis is not sure what to think about it. It’s like his biggest dream and worst nightmare collaborated in doing this, now, when he’s trembling and hangover and looks exactly as he feels. Harry scans him over and it’s like there’s pity in his eyes, mixed with a little bit of disbelief and something else and he doesn’t need to see that to make him want to kill himself now, when he’s bloody close as it is.

“You look like hell.”, Harry says finally and Louis is still lost staring at him. He shrugs with half a mind of running out that door and never facing this ever again. Moving to Tibet or somewhere.

“Why are you here?”, he asks, trying for reasonable but it ends up sounding like he’s choking out the words.

“Why am I here?! Why are you still here? I could have you arrested and thrown in prison this very minute and you just decide to stick around, do you? What is your fucking deal?!”, Harry screams at him and Louis is thrown from the course of:

One: Harry is asking for something and even now, Louis will provide, he knows he will, but he must not, really he has to stop it, if he says too much it will only provide pity. Staying mentally alive suddenly becomes kind of important.

Two: He looks like it’s been hard on him, whatever it is that hit after Louis did, but still it’s Harry, strong, powerful, beautiful and furious, so wrong and oh so… He loves every bit of him.

Three: He might just get that punch he deserved a long time ago.

Shaking his head, Louis steps away and Harry walks after him, the door shutting like a final note to something.

“What are you doing?! Why did you send that painting back, what the fuck is the plan?! You did it all to get it and then it’s just there at my doorstep!”, he doesn’t stop shouting. Louis kind off misses him saying his name.

Meekly, he points to the mattress on which he sleeps as if inviting him to sit and Harry scoffs as it offends him. Of course. The man is used to king-sized mansions, not this. Or rather, since Harry has no snobbishness in him, it’s the fact that it’s as close to Louis’ bed is it gets and he is never getting near that ever again. Louis prays it’s the first option, because the second just…

“You need to start talking. Or this will get ugly, I swear.”

This he says calmly and it’s actually menacing, like he knows Louis will take this seriously, finally.

“I will. Not because you’re about to throw me in prison or beat me to death though. You want it, you’ll get truth.”, Louis says and shrugs again, like he accepts that it’s going to be like this. He doesn’t fear what Harry might do, he really isn’t, he’s just incapable not to do what he asks for now, as he’s been ever since he met him.

Harry scoffs again.

“Let me judge about truth from you.”

And it hurts, because there was truth all the time, not everything was made of lies. At least as soon as Louis stopped lying to himself.

“I sent you the painting back after I found out what it means to you and Gemma. I saw her yesterday on TV and I swear I had no idea Harry. I stole it but I didn’t know how you got it in the first place.”

He sounds firmer now, but Harry stares like he just grew an additional head.

“TV show?! That’s what it works with you for a little bit of decency, a hint of being human?!”, he shouts again and Louis visibly flinches now. Harry looks like he’s sorry for a second and then collects himself, rubs hands over his face and keeps them in his hair, staring at Louis again.

“You could look at it like that. I didn’t know what it meant for you. If I did, I would never…”, he starts, but Harry is suddenly in his face, storm in the eyes and fists gripped like he’s going to strike any moment now.

“You didn’t know what the painting meant to me?! But you did know what everything else did and yet you fucked me and left like it’s not a big deal for that piece of cloth, so why the fuck would you give it back?!”

Louis is frozen and he might cry because Harry still feels that night heavy in his bones and it’s worse because he shouldn’t think he was fucked his first time. He wasn’t fucked.

Harry catches himself before he can punch and Louis foolishly thinks that he’s calmed himself again. But what really happens is a tiny, barely-there tremble in his lip and a flash of hurt-doubt-pain across his face.

“You don’t care for the fucking painting but you cared less for me, didn’t you? Why did you send it back then, I don’t get, I need to know!”, it’s pure hurt as he says it and Louis knows he will think less of himself for showing any emotion to the man who fooled him like Louis did, but now he can’t even process the thought of not rebelling against this.

“I sent it back because I found out that I took something really important from you and there should be no more pain, alright? I don’t care for the damn painting, never did, it was easy money and that’s it.”, he tries not shouting an “I love you more than I loved myself, ever, and that’s big coming from me, trust me!”

“Why didn’t you sell it then?! It’s been six months Louis, if you never cared for anything why didn’t you sell it and why are you still here?”, he stops shouting towards the end.

Louis fights a smile when Harry says his name and looks down, ashamed of how he can’t fix this, whatever he says, there is no use of hiding anymore. Whatever he does now, nothing can change what was.

“I never said I didn’t care about you. And the painting was the only thing left from you.”

When he admits it, he doesn’t look up, but can still hear the silence as it drops heavily among them.

“You’re going to stand there and tell me that you care for me?! You don’t seriously expect me to believe you, do you?!”

Harry starts crying then, Louis can hear the sobs breaking out and it’s horrible.

“I don’t expect you to do anything Harry. Whatever you do, it’s fine, just don’t cry over me, we both know it’s not worth it.”, he tries coming closer but Harry steps away like the closeness will burn him.

“Why did you take it then? If it isn’t worth it? Why did you take a year out of my life, my virginity, my soul, everything?”, he sounds broken. Louis hates himself for saying it but he has to, nothing else will ever be enough.

“I love you.”

Harry looks and frowns and squints at him like he can’t believe what he heard but says nothing. Louis knows he won’t believe him, but now it doesn’t matter, does it?

“I do. I know you won’t believe it, but I do. And I never planned on doing it, falling for you, but I did and it was easy and safe and wonderful and I kind of forgot why I even came into your life. I had to do it and leave eventually but for so long I just… I wanted to be the best for you. Do it all with you. Everything you wanted. I know you don’t believe me but I did.”, his voice is gentle when he says it. Harry should always only hear about people loving him in gentle whispers. If time could turn back, Louis knows he couldn’t do anything different, it was what it was, but if he could live through it again, he would only try loving him more fiercely.

Harry blinks and stares and that’s all he does. Whether he believes it or not, Louis doesn’t know.

“Why did you come into my life?”, he asks. This one is a hard confession. Louis thought about saying it many times, before and after leaving, thought about reactions and tears and screams that follow.

“Found a photo on-line, you in front of the painting. Came to Cheshire to steal it and realized that the only way was…”, he stops and shuts his eyes.

“Can you look me in the eye when you say that? That much I deserve at least?”, Harry whispers and he sounds like a small, hurt child.

“Oh God… Yes. Yes. You deserve it, that and so much more and I’m sorry for ever lying to you, but this… I don’t want you hurting over this because I love you. Even though the beginning wasn’t honest, after it was. I swear.”, he says and he’s looking at Harry while he does it. It takes guts, which Louis didn’t think he had.

“Louis.”, Harry says and it’s enough.

“ I realized that the only way was to find out the code and break in from the inside and the only way to know the code was to be close to you…”, breathes in…

“And I did. I threw myself in front of you in the park and it went from there.”

Tears are streaming down Harry’s face again. It’s exhausting, all of it, Louis’ head didn’t stop hurting the entire time, the hangover is colossal and he just made Harry sad again.

“You know, if you ever asked, I would’ve given it to you. You could’ve said you liked it very much and it would be yours and you could have pretended to leave after that for any other reason and it would hurt like hell but less than waking up in a cold bed and realizing that the love making you thought you experienced was just someone you love fucking you over in every way.”, Harry looks at the wall as he says it.

Louis nods and shrugs and frowns and tries keeping himself together.

“I wouldn’t do that. No. It was important to me, towards the end, to not lie to you. So I didn’t. That was me, loving you. And making love to you. But I had to leave eventually. Before it got worse.”

“How much worse do you think this could get Louis?”, the tears don’t stop and words are sobs.

“I could’ve stayed and proposed to you and gotten married and adopted those kids and I could have lived a life with you before you found out. I could. I wanted to. Just… You didn’t deserve that.”, Louis hugs his own arms as he says it.

“And you think I deserved this?!”, Harry shouts and snaps him out of the lull in the conversation.

“No! No, I don’t think you deserve any of these things and I’m sorry and I’ll go away and you’ll forget and be happy and just… Take that painting and forget I ever happened.”

Saying that is like disrobing your fears in front of your worst enemy and waiting for the blows to start. He doesn’t want to be forgotten, he wants forever of misery with hope keeping him alive, like it has this entire time and this is him pushing the lifeline away.

“If I could forget you ever happened Louis, I would have already.”, Harry says and it seems final. Louis nods and shrugs.

“What do you need me to do then? Do you want to report me? Want to beat the fuck out of me? I’ll do it, I’ll let you do whatever.”

“I need you to go back in time and tell that me in the park that day not to fall for a guy in whose love I can never trust again. Can you erase yourself from my life?”, Harry looks at him through tears while he says it, snotty and blotchy face and lips bitten by sharp teeth. He is the worst version of Harry Louis has ever seen, but still trumps anyone else he has ever laid eyes on.

“If I could, I would. In a heartbeat. I would change it all for you.”, it’s worth nothing now but Louis says it anyway.

“And for yourself?”

Louis tries a smile at that, it ends up being a grimace but Harry can’t see him either way through the tears.

“I wouldn’t erase you, no. I’ve had a shit life Harry and I fucked yours up, yes, but you’re still the best part of it.”, it’s frank and honest and Harry must have seen that now, when Louis started crying himself. Tears can be acted, yes, but not when you’ve given up like he had.

“What I want, you can’t give me. So what I need now is a drink.”, he says and turns around to go, but Louis chokes on warnings and worries he shouldn’t have.

“Wait!”

Harry turns around and looks at him like he is demented.

“I’ve heard it all Louis. What more?”, he whispers.

“I know this isn’t appropriate for me to say and you probably need that drink and it’s fine, but could you… Take care, yeah?”, he doesn’t know how to explain it, so he mucks it up, of course.

“I mean… I saw you on that show with that guy and I know I don’t have a right, I know, but I do care for you, you don’t trust me but anyway… Don’t do that to yourself? Not for me, not for anybody. I know I ‘ve been a dick, but there is a normal guy out there that will not drag you drunk through the streets like a piece of meat…”

Harry starts shrieking with something nearing laughter but forced and pitiful instead.

“You don’t have a right to choose who I hook up with Louis.”, he says when he runs out of breath.

“No, listen to me, I’m not trying to choose for you, but could you possibly see that you shouldn’t be hooking up? There is a life that’s yours out there, with someone gentle and kind and probably a bit childish sometimes, but with good intentions and someone who will take care of you when you want and leave you alone to deal with stuff when you want and be proud to have you pay attention to them.”, he’s choking on the description because that someone must exist and that someone is the only person able to fix this hole he blew through Harry.

“So basically, I need what you were during that time you swear you were honestly in love with me?”, Harry says and just looks at him for a second, waiting for it to soak in before turning around and leaving.

It’s quick and not complicated at all, but it’s Harry’s best punch yet. Louis is disarmed, left mouth wide open and just disbelieving in the dark little apartment, thinking how it can’t be true that Harry saw that in him when he wasn’t acting, because then it would be the real him and that… He’s not that good. Or that lucky in life. Not that deserving. But most of all, it’s not his destiny to find someone whose love will transform the deep, black pit inside of him into something that bright. Except he was. And he wasn’t acting. Or stealing moments. A thief would now.

***

He starts looking for Harry two hours later. That’s how long it took him to remember all the times he was left at a crossroad in life. There were many, but not many important and never any he seriously thought about. Thinking about who he was wasn’t ever important when he went with the flow. And he did. Randomly, devotedly. It was easier.

 

He doesn’t fool himself, it’s not like he has an honest chance to decide upon anything now. There are facts staring at him from all over the apartment, smiling like Cheshire cats from the darkness.

 

He loves someone more than he loves all the things he managed to get for himself in life. He never loved himself properly.

That someone will never return the emotion because his entire existence has been shattered by Louis himself.

But in the essence of things, loving is there and Harry and his decisions don’t change that. So what Louis has to choose between is whether he will walk away now and continue running from his messes forever. Or he could go and find Harry and help him be happy and then be happy for him. 

He likes the second option. He likes Harry’s smile more than a thousand interesting, half-hearted stares strangers might throw at him along the way. The decision was made from that moment he decided to send the painting back really.

Harry isn’t far ironically. The first place where Louis looks and he’s there, leaning on his hand and the front glass of the Payne’s pub, collecting pitiful stares from people passing down the street in the early evening. Liam casts a worried glance Louis’ way when he enters, sidetracked from staring at Harry hunched over a glass, a bottle of whiskey beside him.

“What do you want?”, Harry asks before Louis approaches and Louis shrugs, knowing that Harry will be looking at his reflection in the glass.

“Nothing.”, he replies and sits at the table beside Harry’s, distanced but close by. Liam approaches him and Louis waves him off, throws money at the table and points at Harry. The lad is confused, about to shake his head when Louis grabs his hand and squeezes. Hurry chuckles at the next table, head lolling downwards but eyes fixed on the reflection in the window.

“Come on, lover boy, Bring me another drink.”, he points with his glass at Liam’s reflection and Louis understands a second later that he’s still holding Liam’s hand and how it looks and he pulls away like he’s been burned.

“No, we’re not, no….”, Liam stutters and Louis rubs his temples tiredly. Even while they were together the absolute angel Harry would get a devilishly mean streak when other people tried flirting with Louis. Or when he was drunk enough to see the flirtation where there wasn’t any.

“Not my lover boy Harry. But you bring him that drink Liam.”, he tries for calm because he knows that’s the only tone that can possibly calm Harry down now.

“Don’t bother. I’ll be going.”, he snaps back and tries standing. Liam is about to go and help before Louis grabs him by the shirt and pulls away. Harry’s not the only one with a possessive streak apparently.

He approaches and slides his hands over Harry’s back, tenderly, like he’s going to break him just by touching. Harry tries moving away but he’s heavily unstable and it just gives Louis more chance to grab him under the arms and steady him.

“I’ll take you to my apartment and I’ll leave you there to be alone if you wish, I won’t even return tomorrow or however long you need, just let me help you.”

“And why should I do that?”, Harry asks, fingers rubbing over his bloodshot eyes before looking at Louis from above, towering at a height that he might not be able to carry those 10 minutes to the apartment.

“Because you need it.”, Louis says and Harry’s eyes get that resigned shade in them. This hurts a lot, both of them, but Louis is not letting him spend the night crying against a window of a pub.

The fresh air from outside makes Harry stumble over his legs and he’s extremely unstable right in front of the pub, leaning on Louis who grabs wherever he can to steady him.

“How is this different than Joe dragging me out of a pub and through the streets? Not very good at estimating what kind of guy I need, are you Louis?”, Harry asks and it stings. A lot. But if he asked already, Louis will continue barring his all in front of him. Always.

“This isn’t me dragging you out. I’m just supporting. And to me, you’re an angel and whoever looks at you like you aren’t can get a piece of my mind. I’m not parading you. First of all, you’re not mine to parade and second, you wouldn’t like it even if you were. Now, can you walk?”, he’s all business as he says it and maybe Harry bites his lip while trying to focus on his face. Maybe it drives Louis a bit crazy, because he loved kissing that lip when it was swollen like that.

The walk is slow but Harry gets a bit steadier and he needs to lean on Louis with only one hand draped over Louis’ shoulders.  
“Gemma lied you know. She had you figured out the second you left probably. Tried protecting me. Didn’t work.”, Harry says as they are climbing the last flight of stairs before the door to the apartment.

“What?”, Louis huffs as he reaches for the door, hurrying with the lock because Harry might just faint then and there.

“She lied in the documentary. That painting did belong to my grand grandmother but it was a gift of some rich suitor she rejected later. Didn’t give a flying fuck about it actually. None of us do. She married an orphan lad from that same orphanage I took you to. Irony, Gemma said when she found out about you.”, Harry is slurring his words as Louis uses the last of his strength to sit him down on the mattress. Then he gathers himself over what he just got told and sits right on the floor in front of Harry.

“What the fuck? Gemma knows?! And you…”, he starts, but Harry is waving him off.

“Of course I know. A London orphan who got recruited by a hotshot criminal when you were 18. Been stealing rich bastards blind ever since then. Gemma had a private detective on you, you know? Ever since you ran off and she found those fingerprints on the painting frame, she hired the man, been tracking you over London, knew where you lived and how and everything. Told me two months ago, when she thought I was acting like I was over you.”, he continues talking.

“But why didn’t she have me arrested? The painting was here the whole time, it would’ve been proof enough?”

Louis tries not making a fuss because Harry is fragile like this, but all of this is flying over his head. Gemma was very protective over Harry and if she ever knew anything, he was sure she would kill him. Painfully and publicly.

“ Told you. She doesn’t give a fuck about the painting. When she gave me proof that you stole it, I made her promise that she wouldn’t report you. She kept an eye on you just in case though. Yesterday, when the paining arrived, she fucking smiled like she expected it. I didn’t even know about that documentary until she explained. Lured you in with that one, she did. Gave me an address and confessed tracking you and how she wanted to see what you were made off apparently and all that. Had me screaming at her and that’s when she realized.”, Harry quiets down at the end and breathes in deeply, unaware that he is rubbing his face in the place where Louis puts his head, probably smelling of him. It should be evident, with behavior like that, but Louis asks because he never expected this. Not in a million years.

“Realized what Harry?”, his fingers itch to go through Harry’s curls, sort the knots out before he sleeps on them and makes them worse.

“That I love you still. That I didn’t report you because I couldn’t stand the thought of putting you in jail with dangerous people.”, he whispers and digs his nose in the sheet.

Louis feels the tears before he’s aware of them and they’re flowing freely over his face. But they are happy. In fact, if he ever cried a tear in his life that could be called happy, these would be. Harry loves him. He’ll never trust him again, that much is for sure, but at least now he knows. He loves and he’s loved and it’s fucked up but Harry will be happy. He’ll make sure of it. Somehow, even if he has to break his own heart along the way, he’ll always have this boyish innocence of being a man Harry Styles once loved too much to let go, even after all, in him. That’s enough to move mountains, let alone fulfill a life. He keeps crying though and he doesn’t want Harry to see it. Not because of vulnerability, but just because. This is no longer a day for Louis’ tears.

“Thank you. I love you.”, he says into Harry’s ear when he leans over him, drapes a thin blanket over his shoulders and stands up to leave, like he promised. He doesn’t touch him, because that’s what he would want, doesn’t stay because he’ll be a renewed pain in the morning, he still is. He also doesn’t talk anymore, because Harry’s eyes are closing, wet eyelashes sticking together and even though Louis would give his all to be the man who can make him smile now, he knows he isn’t.

He leaves the apartment and sits on the floor on the other side of the door. He can’t lock Harry in obviously, but he also can’t leave as the door is unlocked. Ironically, he held a painting worth millions inside an unlocked apartment for months, drunk beyond his mind, but now it’s Harry on the other side and him he just can’t risk.

Closing his eyes and trying to sort through his brain, he jumps when he hears Harry shout:

“Louis!”, it’s pure panic as he bursts in and it’s Harry sitting on the mattress, not a trace of sleep on him but trembling hands that cling to the blanket and fresh tears on his cheeks.

“Why did you leave?! Again?!”, he shouts at Louis and it’s too much for him not to start crying again. Harry gets like this when drunk, child-like vulnerability oozing out of him and just waiting for people to take advantage of it. Louis hated him drinking because of it, never completely sure that he will manage to protect him from the world when in this state. Or from himself.

“I was outside, on the other side of the door. Just thought to give you privacy. I’m not leaving Harry. Never again, I swear.”, he’s trembling as he approaches the mattress and Harry is rocking back and forth.

“Please stay here, please…”, he whispers through sobs. Louis is about to lose it.

“Can I touch you? Just your face, I promise, can I?”

Harry nods and he goes in, cups his cheeks and wipes the tears away, gentle and slow and fuck if he isn’t enjoying this.

“I’m going to stay here. Right beside the mattress, ok? I swear. Lie down and try to sleep and I will not move until the morning, ok?”, he says slowly and thank God Harry nods a little.

Louis helps him lie down and then sits where he was couple of minutes ago. Harry keeps looking at him until the alcohol closes his eyes, breath steady and slow now. He’s calm and that’s all that matters.

Louis keeps his promises. One to Harry, he doesn’t move from the floor, sits and looks at him sleeping and smiles through half of it, head over heels in love and so, so determined to fix the broken angel somehow. And the other to himself, where he doesn’t climb on that mattress and try and hug Harry, not taking advantage of opportunities with someone who doesn’t trust him with their heart and body anymore.

***

Harry has a massive headache in the morning, Louis can practically see it, but he’s also stubborn to get up by himself and stumbles towards the door.

“I don’t even know why I came here.”, he says while shrugging on his coat. Louis tries thinking about something to say and be both honest and useful at the same time, but nothing comes out.

“I’m going home. Goodbye Louis.”, Harry mutters as he grabs for the handle and then stops.

Not turning around, he rests his forehead on the door and huffs.

“You’ll never try to stop me from walking out, will you?”

Louis practically runs towards him and slams a hand on the doorframe right beside Harry’s head to steady himself.

“Do you want me to?”, Louis breathes over the back of his neck and Harry shivers slightly, he can feel it against his sides.  
“What do you want Louis?”

“I want to do whatever is right.”, he answers but Harry isn’t satisfied, turns around and pushes him away, clearly pissed off.

“You thought you were doing the right thing when you ran away too. How about doing something you actually want and not fucking it up. Again.”, he spits out. Louis is not surprised by the reaction but he is by the content.

“What are you saying? I get another chance at this?!”, he points his hands between Harry and himself and sucks a breath in before he gets an answer. That would be highly unexpected, to hear a “yes”, but the “I love you” from last night was also unexpected and maybe life has a soft spot for him. Or Harry does.

“I don’t know.”, Harry whispers.

It’s enough. Of course. What else was he expecting?

“Then you need to figure that out. Thinking only about yourself this time. I’ll be waiting.”, Louis encourages him. It’s not like he’s rooting for an outcome. He’s absolutely dying for it to be affirmative, but even if he doesn’t get it, he’ll be fine, now. Harry’s happiness is going to fix him, eventually.

“You’ll be robbing people around London, you mean.”, Harry throws back and even though it’s mean, it’s also a question, probing around what Louis wants. It feels good to be questioned about that.

However, crime isn’t an option anymore. That’s for unattached people, ones who could not be hurt, except physically and Louis is far from that right now, probably forever. A gaping, obviously throbbing sore spot is present now and playing with other people’s lives while he himself exposes part of his own… No. It stops and it’s not like he’s going to particularly miss it.

“I’m not going to do that anymore. I’ll just be waiting. Promise.”, he says and Harry looks at him like he can’t decide between something.

“ I might never come back, you know. And even if I do, you’ll probably not like the answer.”, he says and Louis shrugs, tries to look like he can deal. He promised himself that he would, no matter what.

“If you’re fine with the answer, I’ll manage.”

Harry leaves and that’s it. Louis honestly doesn’t expect seeing him for maybe a couple of months. It changes nothing about the reason why he gets up in the morning and goes out to do normal, decent things, like sit in a park or look for a job. He has a decent amount of money left still, but he figures there is a change to be made, either way, and he needs some practice in being normal and honest. He doesn’t drink and enters the pub only to apologize to Liam for his behavior around Harry, endures a few questioning glances and walks out like a bit freer man. It gets better, day by day, like a baby learning the steps of a proper man.

What he ends up being by the time he falls asleep at night is a less angry man. He starts dealing with blaming himself instead of drowning in guilt and makes plans on how he will fix his and Harry’s relationship when he comes back. Together or not, he wants to be there as Harry gets the happy ending and spoken apologies are not going to bring him to that place in Harry’s life.

And he waits. Patience is not one of the things he has ever been good at, but this is deserved, quiet and calm even.

To be honest, he fears pain if Harry says he doesn’t want him like that ever again. He knows he’ll never get to love anyone like he does him and it was paralyzing to give up from fighting hard for that second chance. But he himself needs to know that it’s going to be Harry’s choice as much as it is Louis’ desire.

Then it’s about three weeks later and someone knocks on his door once more. He’s sober and ready this time, opens the door and smiles gently at Harry’s disheveled state.

“You didn’t have to drive during the night again, you know.”, he says and moves so Harry could enter but he doesn’t. Instead, he flings himself at Louis and engulfs him in a mess of hair and arms and warm, familiar fabric and smell and oh…

“Harry?”, he asks and the “ready” and “calm” get replaced by trembling and nervous.

“I need you not to move, alright? Or speak.”, Harry says, his head still hanging over Louis’ shoulder, so he can only feel him nodding.

Slowly, Harry untangles himself and then breathes in before looking him in the eye.

“It felt horrible when you did it and I’m still not sure whether I can ever let you get close as you were. But I trust you. I can’t explain it to anyone but I do. Staying away hurts, you know? I kind of love you too.”, he says and Louis smiles wide and nods again, unprepared for what he’s hearing.  
“I don’t know how freely I can love you again Louis. But I want to try. I need to. And you need to be completely honest this time.”

Louis nods again and lifts his hands up to wipe at his eyes and breathes out. Then he points at his mouth and lifts an eyebrow, smile on his lips. Harry scoffs and smiles back.

“No, you may not talk yet.”, he says, pulling him in for a kiss.

It tastes like this second chance even, gentle and innocent as it is. Almost like a first kiss. Louis smiles yet again against Harry’s lips and cuddles closer, finally warm and, impossibly, happy.

***

Doing it over would be weird, so they don’t. They do it like it’s new, a first of everything and never a repeat.

Louis doesn’t move to Cheshire for a year and a half, starts working in a coffee shop down the street and maintains the distance until Harry finally convinces him that he’s ok with living with Louis again.

Gemma comes by a week after they reconcile, slaps him hard and threatens his life if he ever even thinks about doing anything to hurt her brother again. Louis swears and promises and maybe it’s not enough for her then, but it becomes gradually, when Louis never tells Harry about the people tracking him when Harry goes back to Cheshire. She keeps an eye on him at all times and Louis is used to it, even feels protected instead of followed and pretends he doesn’t notice. He never talks about it with Gemma but they both know that it’s all clear between them and when she asks him about his life in the orphanage when he moves in with Harry again, he is quick to reassure her that he doesn’t resent her discovering about him or manipulating him. Honest, he tells her what she wants to know and she’s respectful and nice about it. Slowly, they become friends again but she remains vary always and he gets used to it.

The man himself is impatient and angry sometimes, at himself and at Louis and the general circumstances of the lives they both chose to live. It’s almost as if he’s scared that any bump in the road will split them apart but he can’t anticipate and avoid all of them. Louis tries to be reasonable about it but often there is only so much words and promises can do to convince Harry that he’s not letting go, not unless Harry himself asks him to.

They are not guarded after a while though. It’s simple and quick as it was that first time and they are still ridiculously in love three years after, when Louis buys him a ring from the money he earned with honest work. Harry nods a “yes” and it’s a wonderful feeling to know that he gets to marry his own personal angel and to love him as his for the rest of his life.

On the celebration that Harry prepared in the orphanage a year after Louis left, he approaches Johnny and tries talking to him like someone who gets it and it ends up in volunteering in the orphanage three days a week for forever, because Louis just can’t let those kids think that nobody understands or doesn’t care all the time. Johnny gets attached to him pretty quickly and tells him about a lot of stuff, but doesn’t really want to leave the orphanage and come live with him in London or Harry in Cheshire, as they both ask him. His friends are where he lives now and he kind of has his own family among them, so he really doesn’t want to go anywhere and Louis gets it, thinking about how the Cheshire orphanage is a very different place than the one he grew up in. Help is always needed though, in things as simple and sad as just being there for kids to look up to and trust and talk to. He can’t help all of them, but sometimes it makes a difference to be listened to and given advice from someone who did it wrong and actually knows what he’s talking about. It feels like the world is a brighter place then, when he does help someone and Harry tells him how proud he is. For the first time, Louis is fine with belonging and loving unconditionally and not doubting whether he’ll be left alone.

On their second anniversary, Louis breaks an arm by slipping on ice again and Harry reacts in much the same way as he did years ago. It makes Louis all tingly inside and if he acts like it hurts just to get extra cuddles, he won’t admit it. Harry probably knows anyway, since he became exceptionally good at reading Louis. It was one of the things Louis himself tried hard about, usually in the nights when they would lie together and couldn’t sleep when they just got back together, he stripped himself naked in front of Harry, memories, feeling, fears and failures, everything that he could remember being important and he accidentally helped himself more than he did Harry to trust him, because sharing a lifetime of doubt with someone released him from the burden of hurting and not admitting it all the time. Harry knows all of him now, what he can and can’t control and it’s all shared openly, because Louis knew that he doesn’t get another chance and his best gambling dice was just who he really was. Thankfully, Harry kind off fell for that person too.

While cuddling him close and trying to distract him from thinking about the cast he has on, Harry asks him about his parents and whether he wants to look for them. Louis is surprised, hasn’t even considered that since he was a child and used to fantasize about them coming back for him, but still he says that he thinks he won’t wishing to meet them. What use would it be, in the end?

But it’s a year after, when him and Harry are starting the adoption process of a baby girl that was left on the doorstep of the orphanage, just like Louis was, that he starts thinking about it again and figures that he has to do it. Soon, he will be a parent himself and if their child ever asks him or doubts about her own parents, he needs to be able to help and understand. He tells Harry and he agrees that that’s the right thing to do, so they enlist Gemma’s detectives again. It’s scary and Louis is a bit envious at the speed at which he gets the information back.  
It ends up being a mother who was a drug addict and an unknown father, a simple record that says very little, left in the orphanage where he grew up. He tries tracking her down but she’s been dead for years already, overdosed in her early twenties and not long after she had Louis. He cries a lot over it, calls it unreasonable that it affects him this much and now, after all this time, but accepts it anyway. Harry holds him and swears that they will be excellent parents and that he loves him the same as he did before they knew. Louis doesn’t doubt it, because trust goes both ways and he feels confident enough in their relationship now to know that it was worth it, all the pain and doubt they’ve both been through.

“When did you forgive me?”, he asks Harry one day, after the baby has been adopted and they are still discussing names.

Harry smiles and hugs him closer and says:

“When you stayed watching me sleep that first night I came to visit you.”

“Why?”

Louis asks because he still doesn’t get it, is amazed at what Harry did so they could have this life and be as happy as they both are. He’s grateful for it but still has days when he knows he didn’t deserve it and even though Harry chases the thought away as soon as he realizes what Louis is thinking about, he still has it clear in his mind that Harry could have not came back and chosen him and how Harry could have had this amazing life anyway, with someone else who was an easier person to learn to love.

“Because I was afraid you’ve left again and then you came back and it dawned on me that you’re the only one who will ever be worth it.”, Harry whispers in his ear and Louis shivers.

“You couldn’t be sure then though.”, he says back and rubs over Harry’s arms placed on his waist.

“I wasn’t sure. You stole the painting but you didn’t steal me. I gave myself away. And then I did it again. As I said, worth the risk in the end.”

And that would be it. Louis feels the chapters of this life-long fight closing and he rather likes what’s written in his life so far, mistakes and everything else.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first one shot from the list of promts I made recently and you people voted for :-) Hope you like. I love me some comments :-)


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